Black Panther #35 Review

Back to Africa? More like back to 2004.

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Black Panther is an odd little book to say the least. I've felt a strong dislike for this latest incarnation of the cancellation-prone series almost from the first issue. However I have to give credit to Reginald Hudlin for making the series a bigger commercial success than writers like Jack Kirby and Christopher Priest were able to. And as much as I dislike plodding through this book month after month, I do get a certain enjoyment out of tearing it to shreds in my reviews.

That's not to say I don't strive to be as objective as possible. There are numerous problems with the current direction of Black Panther, and I like to think they're obvious to any reader, regardless of their past experience with the character. Panther and his new bride Storm have finally - after a long, drawn out year full of inane plot twists - returned to Earth to deal with more domestic problems. Don't think for a moment that any of the book's past flaws have magically fixed themselves in the transition. Black Panther is still likely to go down as Marvel's worst book of the entire month.

Where to start? Well, I might as well flog a dead horse some more and complain about how utterly and completely Christopher Priest's old storylines are being ignored. When that particular volume of Black Panther was canceled in 2004, T'Challa had fled his Wakandan throne and taken up residence in Harlem. Faced with a potential coup by recurring villain Eric Killmonger, T'Challa suited up once more and pledged to defeat his sworn nemesis once and for all. At his side was White Tiger, an interesting and criminally underused little character that has only been seen once or twice since then. Oh, and T'Challa had recently discovered he would die from an incurable brain aneurysm. Isn't it ever so delightful how strongly writers adhere to continuity these days?

I bring this up because Hudlin has finally chosen to bring back Killmonger. No mention of his last appearance is made. Like so many other pieces of Priest's run, we're forced to assume it just never happened. I honestly wouldn't care half as much if these new stories were well crafted. They aren't. Killmonger comes across as any other two-bit villain with delusions of grandeur. He has mysterious new powers at his disposal, but so what? Multiple characters are quick to point out that Killmonger is the only villain Panther has never been able to defeat. I have to wonder how Hudlin plans to reconcile that with his normal portrayal of T'Challa as an unstoppable force of nature. In this book Panther is like the Marvel Universe's version of Chuck Norris. He can slam a revolving door. In a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," Black Panther is always the winning choice. When he goes to sleep at night, The Boogeyman checks his closet for Black Panther.

You get the picture. It's hard to ever feel a sense of conflict when Panther is assured of winning the day, and nothing in this issue leads me to believe that will change in this arc. Instead, we're left with the same poorly written dialogue (everyone in Wakanda talks like they're a relic from a bad American sitcom) and hackneyed situations.

The art is pretty good, which isn't unusual for this book. I actually wonder if I should dock extra points from this issue for wasting Cafu's time. There are plenty of deserving comics in need of a decent artist like him. But, as I said, I'm trying to be as fair and objective as possible.

*sigh*

It's a sad, sad time when I find myself wishing one of my favorite comic book characters would just die already. Obviously Priest had the right idea by giving Panther an incurable aneurysm. In all honestly I would rather have Panther die or turn Skrull so some other character could take up the mantle. It wouldn't excuse the many problems this book faces each month, but at least I could stop caring so much.